Girls volleyball: Valley Christian is No. 1 again after its dramatic win over Archbishop Mitty

Trent Dilfer, is a former football quarterback in the National Football League, center, congratulates daughters Madeleine Dilfer (8), on left, and Tori Dilfer (12), on right, members of the Valley Christian girls volleyball as they win against Archbishop Mitty at Archbishop Mitty High in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013. (Josie Lepe/Bay Area News Group)

In a girls volleyball season of unpredictable twists and turns, when ranked teams have spent the past six weeks beating each other, that question was posed Tuesday night to Valley Christian co-head coach Jeff Kim.

Kim's team had just beaten the top team in the Mercury News rankings, Archbishop Mitty, in five dramatic sets, on the road, and his players were celebrating with their classmates and family members all around him.

Valley Christian entered the Mitty match with five losses, mostly at big tournaments, but one of those losses had come locally, at Menlo, in four sets.

Mitty had lost just two matches and had beaten Menlo, in four sets, on the road.

"Every night it could be anyone," Kim said. "But we believe we're the best because of the way we work and the way we can play. I'm going to give credit to the kids because they stepped up, and they executed."

It's quite possible that all three could represent Northern California at the state championships Dec. 7 because they're in different enrollment classifications -- Mitty in Division II, Valley Christian in Division III and Menlo in Division IV.

But that's still several weeks away.

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For now, the quest for Valley Christian and Mitty is a West Catholic Athletic League championship, and Valley Christian took a giant step Tuesday toward claiming the crown that Mitty won last season.

As Valley Christian star Maddie Dilfer said, the Warriors had waited a long, long time to beat Mitty. And when the moment arrived, they erupted as if it were New Year's Eve in Times Square.

Final score: 19-25, 25-14, 21-25, 27-25, 15-10.

"It was awesome," said Dilfer, the daughter of former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer. "We've been working hard all season, trying to get better. Had this date on the calendar, knew it was coming.

"They played a great match. They're a really good team. Credit to them. But it was our night, and we came out and proved it."

Valley Christian lost a tight first set, then rolled through the second.

Mitty, the reigning Division II state champion, won the third set and positioned itself to end the match in the fourth, taking a 23-22 lead.

But Valley Christian got a big shot from Kirsten Mead and sent the match to the fifth set when 6-foot-3 sophomore Ronika Stone made a huge block.

Stone took charge in the final set, delivering two kills and a block to give Valley Christian a lead it would not relinquish.

"There was a lot of things going on in my mind, but I just thought, 'Next ball. Next ball,' even if we didn't get the point," Stone said.

Mead called the victory "an amazing experience," noting the amount of work the team has gone through to reach this point.

"We put everything into this game," she said. "We just gave it our all and played together. We're really happy with the way it turned out.

"We believed we could win this match. We knew we could do it, even when we were behind in the fourth set. We just knew we could pull it out if we worked together."

Valley Christian will win the outright WCAL season title with wins in its final two matches, against Presentation and St. Ignatius.

"Losing some matches has fueled us," Dilfer said. "It's made us want to be better. Our goal at the end is to go on to state and win state. We keep pushing for that every day."